‘It’s not a partisan question’: P.E.I.’s lessons on electoral reform

CHARLOTTETOWN – As federal MPs on the special parliamentary committee on electoral reform spend the summer in hearings on the issue, they’ve been looking to the relatively harmonious example set recently by their counterparts on Prince Edward Island.

In contrast to the process in Ottawa — which has seen the major parties split on several issues from the question of whether to hold a referendum on electoral reform to the make-up of the committee itself — the politicians who have led the Island’s electoral reform process describe a relatively amicable experience.

P.E.I. Progressive Conservative MLA Sidney MacEwen said he gives credit to his peers for their smooth-sailing process.

“The members of the committee were quite flexible and I don’t think anybody came in with an agenda,” he said.

“I think all committee members just really wanted to get it done right and then let Islanders decide.”

By “done right” he means “to take any perceived bias out of it (the process).”

Conversations with Ottawa

It seems that P.E.I.’s experience is not lost on federal parliamentarians.

Mark Holland, parliamentary secretary to the democratic institutions minister, reached out to P.E.I. government whip Jordan Brown last month to talk about the Island’s undertaking.

They sat down together in mid-July, joined by local MPs Wayne Easter and Sean Casey, prior to a federal town hall on electoral reform in Charlottetown. Held in a meeting room at Holland College — also the site of the town hall — their meeting ran for about an hour.

Among his questions for Brown, Holland said he wanted “to get his reflections on what was important to P.E.I. in our process.”

The parliamentary secretary brought several pieces of Brown’s advice back to his colleagues in Ottawa — to keep the options open and to listen, for example.

“The main thing that I was hearing was to let it be very publicly-driven and self-evidently publicly-driven,” Holland said.

First-past-the-post, the current system whereby the candidate with the most votes wins the seat.

First-past-the-post plus leaders, which would also give a seat to the leader of any party who wins 10 per cent of the provincial popular vote.

Dual-member proportional, which assigns half the seats through the current system and the other half based on the provincial popular vote.

Mixed-member proportional, which includes district representatives and province-wide members chosen by voters from a party list.

Preferential voting, in which voters rank all the candidates, and the second choices of voters who picked lower-ranking candidates are redistributed until someone wins 50 per cent of the vote.

The referendum formula was produced by two rounds of public consultations, during which the committee heard directly from Islanders about their preferred options for reform. The feedback helped to shape the committee’s recommendations, including the referendum question, to the legislature.

Now, the committee has taken a back seat, while Elections Prince Edward Island travels across the province, educating Islanders on the five options on the ballot this fall.

Reflecting on the process, the committee’s Green and Progressive Conservative (PC) members, as well as Brown, say there is little, if anything, they would change were they to start over from the beginning.

This is significant given that they sit on a committee dominated by the governing Liberals.

In Ottawa, by comparison, the opposition parties couldn’t fathom the Liberals having a majority on the electoral reform committee. And now they, not the government members, hold the balance of power. The committee has to report by December.

Roads to reform

OttawaThe federal government and P.E.I.'s provincial government are both pursuing a change to the first-past-the-post voting system The chart compares their approches so far.

P.E.I.The federal government and P.E.I.'s provincial government are both pursuing a change to the first-past-the-post voting system The chart compares their approches so far.

Origin?

Liberal 2015 federal election promise

Announced in 2015 throne speech

Commitment?

“We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.”

The Liberal government's throne speech vowed to "initiate and support a thorough and comprehensive examination of ways in which to strengthen our electoral system, our representation, and the role and functioning of the Legislative Assembly."

Body leading the process?

Special Committee on Electoral Reform

Special Committee on Electoral Renewal

% of committee seats held by government memebrs

42Five of the 12 MPs on the committee are Liberals.

60Three of the five MLAs on the committee are Liberals.

Number of parties represented on the committee?

5 Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Bloc and Green

3 Liberal, Conservative and Green

Consultations?

IshThe government has asked MPs to hold town halls in their respective ridings

✓Committee members conducted travelling public hearings, allowing Islanders to give input during October and November 2015, and again in February and March 2016.

Plebiscite?

No The committee will make recommendations to Parliament by Dec. 1, 2016

✓The Liberal government committed from day one to put a vote to Islanders.

Date(s) of plebiscite?

N/A

Oct. 29, 2016 to Nov. 7, 2016

Minimum voting age

N/A

16The earliest date for the next provincial election is two years from now. These teens will be 18 and eligible to vote by then.

Options on ballot?

N/A

First-past-the-post

First-past-the-post plus leaders

Dual member proportional

Mixed member proportional

Preferential voting

Cost of plebiscite?

While none is planned, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Maryand told the committee it would cost roughly $300 million to hold a referendum.

Budget: $450,000Actual: A lot moreElections PEI doesn't have a final figure as they budgeted for the plebiscite before receiving their mandate to do public education and some of the voting proceedings.

The consensus model

So, how did they pull off a non-partisan process in P.E.I.? The committee members shelved their biases and made decisions by consensus.

As one of the two opposition members, MacEwen admits that he was initially “a little bit concerned” about the committee’s Liberal majority. But, he says, the Liberal MLAs listened and, for the most part, agreed when the opposition MLAs had ideas.

MacEwen also says the province’s last referendum on electoral reform served as a cautionary tale. Held in 2005, that plebiscite asked Islanders a yes-no question: “Should Prince Edward Island change to the mixed member proportional system as presented by the Commission of PEI’s Electoral Future?”

In short, the ‘no’ vote won at 63.58 per cent and the province kept its first-past-the-post system. But then-premier Pat Binns’ government faced myriad criticisms — the process leading up to the vote was rushed, for example — for a plebiscite that, in MacEwen’s words, left a “sour taste.”

Echoing his Progressive Conservative colleague, Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker says the committee’s success was due in large part to the “character” and the “attitudes” of its members, who “came to it with an open mind and a sense of common purpose.

“Although we represent different parties in the House, that was never really clear in the discussions we were having,” he said. “I was never aware of interference or influence coming from the back rooms of either of the other parties.”

That is, he says, except for on one occasion: when Premier Wade MacLauchlan said, in a 2015 year-end interview with CBC News: Compass, “I’m not a believer in proportional representation.” That statement had advocates of that system accusing the premier of sabotaging the reform process by stating a preference.

Otherwise, Bevan-Baker describes a process in which “people were willing and keen to work together.”

Brown, meanwhile, acknowledges that the government did initially face criticism for stacking the committee with Liberals.

“Frankly, in the end, I don’t think it made any difference,” he said, sitting at a bustling café in downtown Charlottetown just blocks from his office.

The committee has operated by consensus since day one, he says, arguing that its members could not have carried out their task “effectively” any other way.

“The minute you get away from consensus, you’re off with your own agenda and it’s probably not a palatable thing,” he said. “There’s nothing really to be gained politically from doing that.

“People (Islanders) are going to want what they’re going to want: it’s not a partisan question.”

‘The chains are off’

Although the P.E.I. Greens, like the federal Greens, are partial to proportional representation, Bevan-Baker says that, given his role on the committee, “It would’ve been completely inappropriate for me to have been a champion of one or other system.”

However, describing his committee duties as “fulfilled,” Bevan-Baker says, “I sort of feel now that the chains are off.”

Starting next month, the Island’s Green Party leader — also its (first and) only Green MLA — will travel across the province, hosting town hall-style education sessions on proportional representation. The referendum question includes two variations — dual member proportional and mixed member proportional — but rather than advocating for one, Bevan-Baker will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both options.

“I hope, in my trip across the province, that I will be able to draw a connection, join some dots between decisions that are made sort of every day by parliament and by government, and the electoral system by which we elect those people that are making those decisions,” he said.

The PCs, meanwhile, haven’t taken a stand on an electoral system — which MacEwen says could have to do with the fact the party has an interim leader.

Regardless, he says he’s encouraging his colleagues to “keep an open mind.”

“Why would we take a stand?” said MacEwen, also the party’s whip. “If you’ve got your own personal stance, that’s fine, but encourage your constituents to get out and see the options because there are a number of interesting options out there.”

This, he says, will prove that the process isn’t biased and help to achieve the result that Islanders want.

The Liberals haven’t taken a stand on a system, either.

“I think that’s still up for debate,” Brown said, adding that, to his knowledge, the party hasn’t spent much time discussing this subject.

Worth noting is that MacLauchlan’s government faced criticism for its White Paper on Democratic Renewal, which some people — including Bevan-Baker — saw as favouring a form of preferential balloting described in detail in the document.

“I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that it wasn’t put out to be that,” Brown said.

Although preferential balloting is part of the referendum question, the specific model outlined in the white paper will not appear on the ballot.

@MkScrimshaw

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